Arduino-cli: Make "Error installing: There were errors loading platform indexes" error more informative

[jonathangjertsen]

Bug Report

Current behavior

I have a Travis CI setup which runs a build script with the following commands

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/arduino/arduino-cli/master/install.sh | sh
./bin/arduino-cli core install arduino:avr

The first command succeeds with the following output:

Installing in /home/travis/build/jonathangjertsen/dht11/build/bin
ARCH=64bit
OS=Linux
Using curl as download tool
TAG=0.11.0
CLI_DIST=arduino-cli_0.11.0_Linux_64bit.tar.gz
Downloading https://downloads.arduino.cc/arduino-cli/arduino-cli_0.11.0_Linux_64bit.tar.gz
arduino-cli not found. You might want to add /home/travis/build/jonathangjertsen/dht11/build/bin to your $PATH

The second command fails with the following output:

Downloading missing tool builtin:[email protected]...
builtin:[email protected] downloaded                                          
Installing builtin:[email protected]...
builtin:[email protected] installed
Downloading missing tool builtin:[email protected]...
builtin:[email protected] downloaded                                       
Installing builtin:[email protected]...
builtin:[email protected] installed
Updating index: library_index.json downloaded                                   
Error installing: There were errors loading platform indexes

Expected behavior

I would expect the installation to succeed, or at least to provide an actionable error message

Environment

• CLI version (output of arduino-cli version): arduino-cli Version: 0.11.0 Commit: 0296f4d
• OS and platform: Ubuntu 16.04.6 LTS, linux/amd64 (Docker)

[per1234]

Hi @jonathangjertsen. You forgot to download the platform indexes by running the command:

./bin/arduino-cli core update-index

There is a nice tutorial about using Arduino CLI here:
https://arduino.github.io/arduino-cli/latest/getting-started

[jonathangjertsen]

How silly of me, thanks!

I would suggest updating the error message to include more information about the error. The code that emits this error message does not seem to print the previous error message(s) that caused the error https://github.com/arduino/arduino-cli/blob/6903076cd3e0ba05791dbd248907a7d42c7f9e16/cli/instance/instance.go#L94

[per1234]

thanks!

You're welcome. I'm glad if was able to assist you in using Arduino CLI for your CI needs. It's certainly the right tool for the job!

I would suggest updating the error message to include more information about the error.

I updated the title and left the issue open to allow the Arduino CLI team to consider your suggestion.

[Inc0ns1st3nt]

Hi,

I was using arduino-cli on my mkr-wifi-1010, after successfully compile the sketch, I had this error during the upload it to the board.
I had run the update commands several times

arduino-cli core update-index

The command I ran:

sudo arduino-cli upload --fqbn arduino:samd:mkrwifi1010 -p /dev/ttyACM0 test

The full error message:

Error during Upload: There were errors loading platform indexes

EDIT: I think my issue is because I ran the command as sudo, and without it, my issue is about permission, which is unrelated as this issue

[namlee2]

Hi,

I was using arduino-cli on my mkr-wifi-1010, after successfully compile the sketch, I had this error during the upload it to the board.
I had run the update commands several times

arduino-cli core update-index

The command I ran:

sudo arduino-cli upload --fqbn arduino:samd:mkrwifi1010 -p /dev/ttyACM0 test

The full error message:

Error during Upload: There were errors loading platform indexes

EDIT: I think my issue is because I ran the command as sudo, and without it, my issue is about permission, which is unrelated as this issue

Hi!

I had the same issue as well, and thank god for forums (https://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=495039.0)!
As you said, it's a permission issue, so here's the magic command:
sudo chmod a+rw /dev/ttyACM0
Once you did this, you don't even have to sudo your upload command.

Have a nice day!